Backing up Windows Update downloaded files

Sometimes things happen. And those things force us to "repair" Windows. Today I was installing Redhat Fedora Core on my computer. The installation went well and Fedora worked like a charm till I wanted to reboot into my Windows system. That is when I discovered that I actually messed up the Windows installation and was forced to repair it. The repair process involves Windows backing up ur computer in the state it currently is, then practically reinstalling itself and finally restoring everything. One thing that it doesn't restore however are all previous updates that have been dowloaded and installed (which is a pity IMHO, but understandable...). Anyways, what this means is basically another 800 MBs or even more (depending on whether the CD you used to restore contains Service Pack 1 or not) night of downloads and if you live on a very slow Internet connection, trust me that's not something you'd like to think about.

After the last incident I had with windows, it took me about 2 days to get all the updates and having to do the same in the same week, let alone in the same month didn't look like a nice prospect and besides I've got tons of assignments to complete. Then I thought about my OS X system. The cool thing with OS X is that updates are downloaded and kept in a directory that you can access and backup (keep downloaded update files) for future use (i.e.: your OS crashes badly and you have to reinstall everything). I thought this might work with Windows too, that is Windows probably keeps downloaded files somewhere. After poking around for almost half an hour, I found that it was indeed the case.

So this is how I restored windows back to what it should be (with all available and previously downloaded updates):

• go to x:\windows\softwaredistribution directory;
• in there, you will find the 'download' folder. I recommend that you back it up for future use and moreover, I recommend you back it up everytime after windows had downloaded some new update files;
• open the 'download' folder , set the view to 'details' and order by 'Date Modified' in an ascending order (so that earlier updates are at the top and latest ones are at the bottom - this will help you follow the order in which the Windows Update Software installs the updates);
• You will find out that subfolders of the 'download' folder have strange and long cryptic names; do not be intimidated by this.
• Open each of the folders in the order we decided earlier on. In each folder, you will find another folder called 'update'. Inside the 'update' subfolder, you will find the 'update.exe' file. For each of the updates, execute that file. Some updates will ask you to restart the system, some others won't. You don't have to restart the system everytime for those updates that ask you to. So you can tick the "Do not restart now" check box at the end of an update. You really have to update only after running the Windows Installer, Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 updates.
• That's it!

I hope this helps someone. ;-)